New robotic system gives salad grower a competitive edge

Living Salads was initially hesitant about committing to new technology and approached CenFRA for guidance to ensure its system was the best for the job.

Twelve months on and Living Salads has improved product quality and competitiveness, enjoying a 50 per cent increase in production units with a matched decrease in labour costs.

CenFRA whittled the opportunities for Living Salads to consider including simultaneous tray filling and harvesting, tray dispensing, integrating a seeder unit with a tray filler and various automated packing and transport systems. All options were offered as solutions to help improve the competitiveness of Living Salads. CenFRA was able to highlight areas of the business where an automation solution could help to reduce risk, cost and improve productivity and quality. It also brought funding opportunities to the attention of Living Salads, available through the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) which has £63m to invest in rural businesses over six years.

Living Salads accessed a £60,000 grant (40 per cent of eligible costs) through the Rural Enterprise Investment Programme, which offers grants starting from £25,000 and is available to rural businesses wanting to grow and become more productive.

The grant was used to install the new packing equipment at Living Salads and the company has now increased the speed and packing efficiency of the

‘living salad’ trays and has reduced manual handling while adding value to the product.

Introducing automation and robotic systems at Living Salads has not cost people jobs but instead has allowed the company to produce more products, expand the business and ultimately create more jobs.

Founder of Living Salads Andrew Johnson comments: “CenFRA is an impartial, authoritative and crucial link between food manufacturers and automation suppliers and Living Salads was able to trust CenFRA’s recommendations because of its expertise and impressive market knowledge.